Largest expo in Johor

JOHOR BARU: This year’s Malaysia Property Expo (Mapex) in Johor was the largest one yet with properties valued at RM18.7bil available for grabs.

The property expo returned to Persada Johor this year with a two-fold increase of available units at 22,600 compared to the some 12,000 on sale in the same event in November, last year.

Organising chairman Wong Kuen Kong said that the event also had the most number of participants with 35 developers setting up 107 booths during the three-day which started on May 23 and ended on Sunday.

He said that the increase in the number of exhibitors this year showed that developers were still confident in the Johor property market and that the property market here was still strong.

“We expect the second half of the year to be even better economically and contribute to an even faster growing property market in Johor,” he said in his speech during the opening ceremony.

Wong, who is also Johor Real Estate and Housing Developers Association (Rehda) branch deputy chairman, added that despite recent cooling measures introduced by the state government, there was still a huge demand for property in the state.

The event was launched by state Housing and Local Government exco Datuk Abdul Latif Bandi who said that the state government would give its full cooperation to Rehda to ensure that the locals have an opportunity to own affordable homes.

Abdul Latif, who read out Johor Mentri Besar Mohamed Khaled Nordin’s speech, said they found that there were certain irresponsible quarters that interfered in the government’s efforts to control the hike in property prices here.

“We have introduced cooling measures like increasing the pricing threshold for properties that foreigners can buy from RM500,000 to RM1mil in October last year, which are aimed at directly and indirectly helping low-income earners have an opportunity to own a property.

“But our efforts cannot bear fruit if we do not have the full cooperation and support from all quarters including developers and the relevant authorities,” he added.

The one-stop property expo also included seminars on pre-Goods and Services Tax investment strategies, the Malaysian property market outlook and feng shui advice for the home.